Wang receives grant from the Lung Cancer Research Foundationhttp://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/andrew-wang-lung-cancer-grant
Andrew Wang, MD, assistant professor of radiation oncology, has been awarded a $50,000 one-year grant from the Lung Cancer Research Foundation. Wang is a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The grant will fund research into the use of nanoparticles for drug delivery of DNA double-strand break repair inhibitors (DSBRIs) in combined chemotherapy and radiation therapy treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. DSBRIs can sensitize cancer cells to both chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but need to be delivered selectively to cancer cells, while sparing normal cells. Dr. Wang’s lab will test nanoparticle formulations of DSBRIs and evaluate their effectiveness in laboratory models.

]]>No publishernewsawards20122012/10/03 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemWallen named 2012 American Urological Association Teacher of the Year http://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/wallen-aua-teacher-of-the-year
This award, initiated by the AUA Residents Committee and approved by the AUA Board, is presented annually to recognize an outstanding urology educator or program director who has dedicated a portion of his/her career to teaching residents and advancing urology graduate medical education.The award will also serve to recognize individuals who, by their example, influence residents to pursue careers in academic medicine and teaching.

Dr. Wallen is a professor of surgery/urology in UNC's Division of Urologic Surgery, director of Laparoscopic Surgery, and director of the Urology Residency Program. He is also a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The award will be presented to Dr. Wallen at the AUA Residents Committee Forum that will be held on Saturday, May 19, 2012 at the annual AUA meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.

Congratulations Dr. Wallen!

]]>No publishernewsawards20122012/03/05 00:00:00 GMT-5News ItemValdar receives $1.4 million grant to leverage collaborative crosshttp://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/valdar-receives-grant
William Valdar, PhD, assistant professor of genetics, has received a 5-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (part of the National Institutes of Health), to develop statistical methods and software to support the design and analysis of experiments that use the Collaborative Cross, a “library” of genetic diversity that scientists believe can help fast-track important discoveries about genetics and disease into new discoveries, tests, and treatments that impact human health. Researchers have long been frustrated by promising lab results that hit obstacles on the road to human application. Sometimes this is because research in other living organisms is very limited in terms of what conclusions scientists can safely extrapolate to the human population as a whole. One reason for this problem is that organisms studied in the laboratory lack the genetic diversity of humans.

To overcome this obstacle, scientists have begun to create libraries of genetic material. These libraries – called Genetic Resource Panels (GRPs) – enable researchers to look at how genetic variation impacts living systems in a careful and systematic manner – an approach that they think will help draw more robust conclusions, often more quickly. The Collaborative Cross, a project aimed at mirroring the diversity of human genetics in the laboratory mouse population, is one such GRP.

Dr. Valdar will develop statistical methods that both allow scientists to conduct complex trait analysis of genetically diverse populations and a statistical framework that allows for the populations to be compared and contrasted. The project will generate tools useful for a wide range of GRP models that can be applied to the genetic study of any complex disease.

]]>No publishernewsawards20122012/10/08 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemUNC’s Myron Cohen and Terry Magnuson elected to Institute of Medicinehttp://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/cohen-magnuson-elected-to-iom
Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.Chapel Hill, N.C. – Two professors in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine have been elected to the Institute of Medicine, considered one of the nation’s highest honors for those in the fields of health and medicine.

Myron S. Cohen, MD, J. Herbert Bate Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, and Epidemiology and associate vice chancellor for global health, and Terry R. Magnuson, PhD, Sarah Graham Kenan Professor, Chair of the Department of Genetics, and Vice Dean for Research in the School of Medicine, are among the 70 new members announced by the institute on Monday (Oct. 15). Both are members of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Cohen arrived at UNC in 1980, and in 1981 UNC Hospitals admitted its first AIDS patient, a man with hemophilia. For the next 30 years, Dr. Cohen’s research has focused on the transmission and prevention of transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. With a team of investigators at UNC, he helped to develop laboratory methods to measure HIV in genital secretions, as well as methods to detect the best antiviral agents to reduce replication of the HIV virus.

Dr. Cohen is the architect and principal investigator of the multinational HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 052 trial, which demonstrated that antiretroviral treatment prevents the sexual transmission of HIV. This work was recognized by Science Magazine as the “Breakthrough of the Year” in 2011. Dr. Cohen serves on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of AIDS Research Advisory Board, the NIH AIDS Research Advisory Council, and the Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEFAR) Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Cohen is the Co-Principal Investigator of the NIH HIV Prevention Trials Network.

At UNC, he has served as chief of the division of infectious diseases since 1990. Much of his research has been conducted internationally, especially in Malawi and China, and in 2007 he was named founding director of the new Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases. In 2005 he received the Thomas Parran Award for lifetime achievement in STD research from the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association. Dr. Cohen was the 2008 recipient of the O. Max Gardner Award, the highest honor in the University of North Carolina 16-campus system.

Dr. Magnuson was recruited to UNC in 2000 as founding chair of the Department of Genetics and director of the newly established Carolina Center for Genome Sciences. He also created the Cancer Genetics Program in the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. A founding member of the International Mammalian Genome Society, Dr. Magnuson also served on the external advisory committee for the Mouse Genome Database at the Jackson Laboratory and was Chair of the Jackson Laboratory Board of Scientific Overseers.

He served on the Board of Directors of the Society for Developmental Biology and also for the Genetics Society of America and is currently a senior editor of the journal Genetics. He was appointed by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine to help establish guidelines for work with human embryonic stem cells and is a member of the NIH stem cell working group. He currently serves as vice chair of an Institute of Medicine Committee conducting an evaluation of the California Stem Cell Initiative. He was elected to the American Academy of Sciences in 2007 and the AAAS in 2009. Dr. Magnuson was appointed as the School of Medicine’s Vice Dean for Research in July, 2010.

The work in the Magnuson lab focuses on the role of mammalian genes in unique epigenetic phenomena such as genomic imprinting and X-chromosome inactivation. The lab also studies the tumor suppressor role of the BAF/PBAF chromatin remodeling complexes and has developed a novel genome-wide mutagenesis strategy. The Magnuson Lab has published more than 150 papers in these research areas

The institute, part of the National Academies, has 1,928 members, including 21 from UNC with the addition of Cohen and Magnuson. Current members elect new members from among candidates nominated for their accomplishments and contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care and public health. Members commit to volunteer on institute committees, which carry out a broad range of studies on health policy issues.

]]>No publishernewsawards20122012/10/15 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemUNC-authored text wins British Medical Association prizehttp://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/book-wins-oncology-category
Clinical Radiation Oncology (3rd edition), co-authored by Joel Tepper, MD, Hector McLean Distinguished Professor of Cancer Research in the Department of Radiation Oncology, won first prize in the British Medical Association Medical Book Awards for the Oncology Category. The text, co-authored with Leonard L. Gunderson, MD, MS, FASTRO, received one of 21 first prizes from a total of 681 entries.]]>No publishernewsawards20122012/10/04 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemUNC scientist to study post-mastectomy breast reconstruction surgery decision makinghttp://unclineberger.org/news/2011-news/lee-receives-grant-to-study-breast-reconstruction-decisions
Chapel Hill - Deciding whether or not to have breast reconstruction after mastectomy is highly challenging for many patients. Clara Lee, MD, MPP, a UNC School of Medicine physician/scientist, has received a five-year grant award to examine patients’ decision-making process about reconstruction and the effects of reconstruction on quality of life and body image. The $862,700.00 career development award to the plastic and reconstructive surgeon is from the National Institutes of Health.Lee, an associate professor of surgery, explains, “The decision about whether or not to have breast reconstruction should depend almost completely on a patient’s personal preferences. And yet we find that rates of breast reconstruction in the United States vary greatly by race, socioeconomic status, and geography. In this study, we will evaluate the decision making process and the quality of decisions about reconstruction.”

Lee and her colleagues also intend to study some novel psychological aspects of patients’ decisions. “Deciding about breast reconstruction requires a patient to predict how she would feel after the procedure, a process called affective forecasting. Extensive psychological research has shown that people have difficulty making accurate predictions about how they will feel, tending to overestimate the effects of disease and treatments on their well-being and to underestimate their ability to adapt to change and the effects of other aspects of their lives.”

Lee is a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is a recipient of a 2010 Lineberger Population Sciences Award, which enabled her team to conduct some of the preliminary research that supports the NIH project.

Lee says, “ Our study is unique in several ways. We will be using a technique from marketing research called “conjoint analysis”. Market researchers have been using conjoint analysis for many years to understand consumers’ preferences about purchasing decisions. We will use it to better understand women’s preferences about breast reconstruction. We also plan to evaluate the ability of breast cancer patients to predict how they will feel after surgery, which is so critical to decision making yet largely unexplored.”

Her hope is that “this research will eventually lead to more patients receiving the treatments they prefer and ultimately to better quality of life for women with breast cancer.”

Lee will be mentored during the grant period by Michael Pignone, MD, MPH, a professor of medicine, chief of the division of general medicine and clinical epidemiology, and a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Peter Ubel, MD, John O. Blackburn Professor of Marketing, Fuqua School of Business, and professor, Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Both are national experts in medical decision making.

]]>No publisherawards2011news2011/09/14 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemUNC scientist elected Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineeringhttp://unclineberger.org/news/2011-news/lin-elected-AIMBE-fellow
Weili Lin, PhD, has been elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Lin was cited for his outstanding contributions to the development and translation of MR functional neuroimaging.Lin is director of the UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center and Dixie Lee Boney Soo Distinguished Professor of Neurological Sciences in the UNC School of Medicine. He is also professor and vice chair of research for the department of radiology and professor of biomedical engineering, neurology and pharmacy, as well as a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Lin joins 106 Fellows for 2012, nominated and elected by their peers to become members of the College of Fellows. The College of Fellows, comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers in the country, includes engineering and medical school chairs, research directors, innovators, and successful entrepreneurs.

These Fellows fulfill AIMBE’s mission of providing leadership and advocacy in medical and biological engineering for the advancement of society.

“The 107 inductees consist of some of the most talented and influential members of our field,” said Kenneth Lutchen, AIMBE President and Dean of Engineering at Boston University. “It is both a pleasure and an honor to welcome the Class of 2012 to our College of Fellows.”

A formal induction ceremony will be held during AIMBE’s 21st Annual Event in Washington, D.C. on February 20th, 2012.

Since 1991, the College of Fellows has led the way for technological growth and advancement in the fields of medical and biological engineering. Fellows have helped revolutionize medicine and related fields in order to enhance and extend the lives of people all over the world. They have also successfully advocated for public policies that have enabled researchers and business-makers to further the interests of engineers, scientists, and ultimately, patients.

Adams is program director for the radiation therapy and medical dosimetry programs at the UNC School of Medicine and an assistant professor in the department of radiation oncology. Qaqish is an associate professor of biostatistics in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Church is a graduate student in radiation oncology.

]]>No publisherawardsradiation therapy2011news2011/07/19 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemUNC radiation oncology resident Nathan Sheets wins ASCO Merit Awardhttp://unclineberger.org/news/2011-news/sheets-wins-asco-merit-award
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) will award 20 oncology trainees with Merit Awards at the 2012 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium. The symposium will be held February 2 - 4, 2012 in San Francisco. Nathan Sheets, MD, a third year radiation oncology resident at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is among the awardees.

He will present his research abstract titled “Comparative effectiveness of intensity modulated radiation therapy, proton therapy, and conformal radiation therapy in the treatment of localized prostate cancer.” His abstract has been chosen as one of only five presentations for the meeting’s official Press Program.

“We are privileged to recognize this year’s Merit Award recipients for their dedication and contributions to improving care and treatment for people living with genitourinary cancers,” said Adam Kibel, MD, chair of the 2012 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium Steering Committee. “We honor their dedication to clinical oncology and hope these awards provide the ability to further their research. These young leaders represent the future of clinical oncology and the remarkable research advances yet to come.”

The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Merit Awards are designed to promote clinical research by young oncology scientists. Awardees are selected based on the scientific merit of their abstracts.

]]>No publisherawards2011news2011/12/29 00:00:00 GMT-5News ItemUNC Lineberger honors five clinical fellowshttp://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/clinical-fellows-awards
UNC Lineberger honored five clinical fellows for their research accomplishments and clinical excellence.Drs. Satish Gopal, Emily Ko, Yueh Lee, Nathan Sheets, and Angela Smith were recognized at a special reception on June 27 when they received an award of $3,000 and a plaque. This is the second year of the clinical fellows award program, which is funded through the generosity of private donors.

Dr. Shelley Earp, UNC Lineberger director, said, “This year we gave five awards because the quality of the candidates as caring physicians and future clinician-scientists was outstanding. Their excellence reflects the attractiveness of our clinical programs for the best candidates and the quality of training given by our faculty mentors.”

At UNC, Dr. Gopal has completed dual fellowships in infectious diseases and hematology/oncology and will have a joint appointment in both divisions as an assistant professor of medicine. In August, he will travel to Africa to work with cancer-related activities in Malawi where UNC has a number of efforts underway.

Dr. Gopal earned his BA and MPH degrees from UNC and his MD from Duke. He completed an internship and residency at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Ko just completed her gynecologic oncology fellowship and will join the UNC division of gynecologic oncology while completing a master’s degree of clinical research through the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. She recently received one of 42 American Society of Clinical Oncology 2012 Young Investigators Awards that will fund her research in “Metformin for the treatment of endometrial hyperplasia.”

Dr. Ko earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard College and her MD degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School where she also completed a post-sophomore pathology fellowship in 2003. She completed her residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Lee just completed a fellowship in neuroradiology at UNC and holds joint appointments in the departments of radiology where he is an assistant professor and physics and astronomy where he is an adjunct assistant professor. Dr. Lee has been a key member of the research team led by Dr. Otto Zhou who invented a carbon nanotube-based x-ray source array technology. Dr. Lee led an initiative to develop a pre-clinical imaging system, and for his efforts was awarded the Radiologic Society of North America Trainee Award. He has several issued US patents and journal publications.

Dr. Lee earned his undergraduate degree from MIT, and a master’s degree from the University of California at San Diego. He earned his MD degree from the UNC School of Medicine and completed a residency in radiology. He also earned a doctoral degree from UNC.

Dr. Sheets is chief resident in the UNC Department of Radiation Oncology. He was first author of a recent paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association on the comparative effectiveness of IMRT radiation therapy for prostate cancer with proton beam therapy.

Dr. Sheets earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan College of Engineering. He earned his MD degree from the University of Michigan. He completed a transitional residency program at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois and came to UNC in 2009 to complete the residency program in radiation oncology.

Dr. Smith just completed a residency in urologic oncology where she served as chief resident and will join the faculty in that division. She has conducted important research in bladder cancer, including the evaluation of post-operative complication following radical cystectomy in bladder cancer patients and of the utility of functional assessment and p16INK4a to better outline risk factors in the geriatric bladder cancer population.

Dr. Smith is a Phi Beta Kappa UNC graduate and earned her MD degree from the UNC School of Medicine.

]]>No publishernewsawards20122012/06/27 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemUNC Lineberger director named Village Pride Honoree for October 2http://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/shelley-earp-vpa
WCHL named UNC Lineberger director Shelley Earp, MD, the Village Pride Award Honoree for October 2, 2012. Each weekday the station selects a Hometown Hero who goes “over and above the call of duty,” exemplifying excellent service and dedication to others in the community.
Dr. Earp is the director of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and applauds the involvement of the entire community to help cancer patients and their families year round. "It is remarkable," he says.

He talks about the impact of UNC Lineberger's Turn the Town Pink campaign that is ongoing throughout the month of October to benefit the UNC Comprehensive Cancer Support Program. He also discusses the "world class level" research being conducted at UNC Lineberger that is helping to advance cancer treatments.

]]>No publisherawards20122012/10/02 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemUNC Lineberger announces first Marci Kramish Campbell Dissertation Award recipienthttp://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/valle-receives-first-marci-kramish-campbell-award
Chapel Hill, NC – Carmina G. Valle, MPH, is the recipient of the first Marci Kramish Campbell Dissertation Award, a competitive $5,000 award to recognize excellence in dissertation research focused on cancer and the population sciences.Valle is a PhD student in the Department of Nutrition at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health who has extensive professional experience at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), both with the Office of Cancer Survivorship and the Analytic Epidemiology Research Branch. From 2002-2004 she was a Presidential Management Fellow at the NCI. She is a previous recipient of a UNC Lineberger Cancer Control Education Program Predoctoral Fellowship, the Ruth L. Kirchstein National Research Service Award from the Department of Nutrition, and the Caroline and Thomas Royster, Jr., Multi-Year Fellowship from The Graduate School at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Her dissertation examines the feasibility and effectiveness of using online social networking to improve physical activity behaviors among young adult cancer survivors (between the ages of 18 and 39). Young adult cancer survivors are at increased risk for second cancers, recurrence, psychological distress and other issues as a result of their cancer and treatment. Previous research shows that regular physical activity can lower risk and enhance these survivors’ quality of life and length of survival.

This award honors Marci Kramish Campbell, PhD, a national leader in cancer prevention and control, disparities and survivorship research who was a faculty member at UNC-Chapel Hill and a program leader at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. She was an exceptional mentor who died much too soon from colon cancer in December, 2011.

The award is funded by donations from Dr. Campbell’s family, friends and colleagues. The goal is to endow this award to create a permanent legacy in Dr. Campbell’s honor. Contributions may be made payable to UNC Lineberger and mailed to Campus Box #7295, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7295.

]]>No publishernewsawards20122012/08/02 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemUNC Lineberger announces 2011 Joseph S. Pagano Awardshttp://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/2011paganoawards
Chapel Hill, NC – Christophe Guilluy, PhD, Wenjin Liu, PhD and JinZhu Duan, PhD are the first, second, and third place recipients of the Joseph S. Pagano Award for a paper by a postdoctoral fellow published in 2011.The Pagano Award was established in 2002 to honor outstanding papers by postdoctoral fellows who are first authors of these papers. Winners are selected through a competitive process and are honored for their authorship of articles in high-impact journals.

The first place paper, authored by Christophe Guilluy, PhD, is “The Rho GEFs LARG and GEF-H1 Regulate the Mechanical Response To Force On Integrins," published in Nature Cell Biology. Dr. Guilluy is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Keith Burridge, PhD. He earned his veterinary degree, MS, and PhD cell biology and physiology at the University of Nantes (France).

Rho proteins have been described as "molecular switches" and play a role in cell migration, cell proliferation, cell death, gene expression, and multiple other common cellular functions. Understanding the actions of Rho proteins is important to illuminating cellular mechanisms related to cancer, which is fundamentally a disease of cell misbehavior. When cells multiply too rapidly, multiply and migrate into inappropriate places in the body, do not die after their natural lifespan or create networks of blood vessels where they should not, cancer results.

Wenjin Liu, PhD, was honored with second place for “LKB1/STK11 Inactivation Leads to Expansion of a Prometastatic Tumor Subpopulation in Melanoma,” published in Cancer Cell. Dr. Liu is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Norman Sharpless, PhD. He earned his PhD in genetics at the University of Rochester.

Liu’s work demonstrates that inactivating a gene called LKB1 (or STK11) causes non-aggressive melanoma cells to become highly metastatic when tested in a variety of models using tumors from humans and mice.

JinZhu Duan, PhD, received third place for “Wnt1/βcatenin Injury Response Activates the Epicardium and Cardiac Fibroblasts to Promote Cardiac Repair," published in European Molecular Biology Organization Journal.

Dr. Duan is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Arjun Deb, MD. He earned his PhD at the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China) and completed a previous postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacy at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.

“This year was again exceptional for the outstanding papers that were submitted,” said selection committee chair, Bernard Weissman, PhD. “We look forward to receiving the articles for next year.”

]]>No publishernewsawards20122012/10/03 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemTwo UNC Lineberger faculty receive 2011 Hettleman Awardshttp://unclineberger.org/news/2011-news/2011-hettleman-awards
Two UNC Lineberger faculty, Noel Brewer, PhD, associate professor of health behavior and health education in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and Karen Mohlke, PhD, associate professor of genetics in the UNC School of Medicine, have received the 2011 Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill. With expertise in the psychology of medical decision making, Brewer has conducted research that is “demanding, meticulous, creative” and that influences disciplines far beyond the field of public health, said Jo Anne Earp, ScD, professor and chair of the public health school’s Department of Health Behavior and Health Education.

He has shown that perceptions of increased risk lead people to practice behaviors that protect their health, such as getting vaccinated or screened, but anticipating regret over a bad decision can be the most powerful motivator of all.

A Carolina faculty member since 2004, Brewer also has studied how people make sense of the often-confusing health information they receive from medical tests.

In 2009, he was named associate editor of the Health Psychology Review and was appointed to the Risk Communication Advisory Panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“Dr. Brewer’s accomplishments are extraordinary,” Earp said. “His research thus far is felt in many spheres and is recognized admiringly by the most respected scientists in the field.”

Mohlke, who joined the UNC faculty in 2004, is considered in the top echelon of researchers in the area of complex-trait genetics, which examines the interaction of multiple genes affecting complex, common diseases.

As a postdoctoral fellow working with Francis Collins at the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Mohlke led the molecular genetics component of an international study that resulted in the identification of two dozen genes involved in type 2 diabetes. Since coming to Carolina in 2004, she has continued her involvement in that study as one of five principal investigators.

Collins, now director of the NIH, said Mohlke’s skills in the lab “as an experimentalist, a creative thinker and a teacher are still legendary.”

Terry Magnuson, Sarah Graham Kenan Professor and department chair, praised Mohlke for her “remarkable ability to direct large groups of individuals in team-oriented research, as well as insight and careful attention to detail in molecular genetic and computational studies her laboratory.” Magnuson is leader of the UNC Lineberger genetics program.

The Hettleman Prize, named for Phillip and Ruth Hettleman and offering a $5,000 stipend, recognizes the achievements of outstanding junior tenure-track faculty or recently tenured faculty. Phillip Hettleman, who was born in 1899 and grew up in Goldsboro, N.C., established the award in 1986. He earned a scholarship to UNC, afterward moved to New York City, and in 1938, founded Hettleman & Co., a Wall Street investment firm.

]]>No publisherawards2011news2011/09/14 00:00:00 GMT-4News ItemTwo UNC Lineberger faculty honored by Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation http://unclineberger.org/news/2012-news/carey-kim-damon-runyon-grants
Carey Anders, MD, and William Kim, MD, were awarded grants from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.Dr. Anders received a 2012 Clinical Investigator Award and Dr. Kim received a continuation of his 2011 Clinical Investigator Award. Both are assistant professors of medicine and members of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Anders’ award is one of six made by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. She will receive a three-year $450,000 grant to support the development of her cancer research program.

Her work is focused on improving survival for women with breast cancer brain metastases. Her goals are to provide a novel therapy for women, who, at present, have few therapeutic options, while laying the foundation for future clinical trials incorporating biomarkers to enhance therapeutic response and survival for women with HER-2-positive breast cancer brain metastases. Dr. Anders will be mentored by Lisa Carey, MD, UNC Lineberger associate director for clinical research and Richardson and Marilyn Jacobs Preyer Distinguished Professor in Breast Cancer Research, and by Charles Perou, PhD, the May Goldman Shaw Distinguished Professor of Molecular Oncology.

Dr. Kim will receive an additional two years of funding totaling $300,000 to complete a promising avenue of research. His grant is made possible through the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, and Connie and Robert Lurie.

His work is focused on renal cell carcinoma, a type of kidney cancer that has poor prognosis when diagnosed at later stages. He will use the continuation grant to identify new drug combinations by applying novel proteomic technologies in collaboration with Dr. Gary Johnson with a goal of rapidly moving these findings to the clinical setting for improved treatment of renal cell carcinoma. Gary Johnson, PhD, is professor and chair of the department of pharmacology in the UNC School of Medicine.

Dr. Kim will be mentored by Norman Sharpless, MD, UNC Lineberger associate director for translational research and Wellcome Distinguished Professor in Cancer Research and Charles Perou, PhD, the May Goldman Shaw Distinguished Professor of Molecular Oncology.

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation provides today’s best young scientists with funding to pursue innovative research. Eleven scientists supported by the Foundation have received the Nobel Prize, seven others have received National medals of Science, and 61 have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Since its founding in 1946, Damon Runyon has invested more than $245 million and funded more than 3,300 young scientists.